Standard Suite
The room most small dogs stay in. Glass at the front rather than bars, a bed off the floor, heat coming up through it, and a window on the side yard.
- dogs up to 25 lb
- $62 a night
- 24 square feet
- Four yard turns a day
Woodside, Queens
Dog and cat boarding in Woodside, Queens
Boarding and daycare for dogs and cats, four miles from LaGuardia.
What the lodge is
Forty-two beds across four suite classes, one dog to a room, plus a separate cat room on the quiet side of the building. Every dog goes out into the yards on the same clock every day, and every breed is welcome, subject to the temperament assessment every dog does.
- 37-32 61st Street, Woodside, NY 11377, four miles from LaGuardia
- Open since 2014
- No banned breed list, anywhere in this building
Four suites, sold from a pool
Glass at the front rather than bars, a raised bed, and yard turns through the day. Pick by weight, or read what each one is actually like.
Large Suite
Half again the floor of a Standard. The difference is not luxury — it is whether a dog can lie down flat without touching two walls.
- dogs 26 to 60 lb
- $74 a night
- 36 square feet
- Four yard turns a day
Grand Suite
The four corner rooms and the two beside them, with two windows apiece and the quietest wall in the building behind them.
- dogs 61 lb and over
- $88 a night
- 48 square feet
- Five yard turns a day
Cat boarding
Fourteen three-level condos in a separate room, on the quiet side of the building, with its own door and its own air handling. No dog passes through it at any point in the day.
- cats
- $42 a night
- 12 square feet
- Zero yard turns a day
Daycare, for the dogs that are only here for the day
Daycare is a day in a play group, not a day in a suite. Dogs arrive between seven and ten, go out in their group, come in when the group comes in, sleep through the middle of the afternoon because every dog does, and go home between three and seven.
- Small group: Dogs up to twenty-five pounds, in the front playroom and the small yard.
- Large group: Dogs from twenty-six pounds up, in the back playroom and the long yard.
A photograph a day. There is no webcam.
You get a picture of your animal each day, taken on somebody's phone in the yard or the playroom, sent by e-mail in the evening. It is a real photograph of your actual dog on that actual day.
We have been asked for a webcam every year since we opened and have not put one in. Three honest reasons: a camera pointed at a suite shows you a sleeping dog for twenty-two hours and worries you for the other two; a camera in a yard films other people's animals and other people's children at the gate; and a feed that goes down at eight on a Sunday evening generates a panic that lands on a keeper who is on their own with forty animals.
What you can have instead, any day, is a telephone call with the person who actually handled your dog that morning. That is worth more than a camera and it is harder to provide, which is probably why fewer places offer it.
Overnight
Somebody is here all night, every night
Somebody sleeps in the building every night. Not a camera, not an alarm company, not somebody on call twenty minutes away — a member of staff, in a room off the corridor, who does a round at eleven, at two and at five. It is the most expensive line on this business's payroll and it is the only honest answer to the question people actually mean when they ask what happens at night.
The assessment comes first
A free appointment, about forty-five minutes, before a first daycare day and before a first boarding stay for any dog that will join a group.
An assessment is three quarters of an hour on one morning in a building your animal has never been in. It tells us how to start. It does not predict what your dog will do in six months, it does not mean nothing will ever go wrong, and anybody who tells you their assessment guarantees that is selling you a feeling.
Straight answers, before you ask
Three of the ten pages this site keeps to say plainly what is true, next to the sentence you will see advertised elsewhere.
What you will see advertised
“Fully licensed and City-inspected. DOHMH permit #XXXXX, displayed for your peace of mind.”
We do not print a permit number on this website
A boarding kennel in New York City needs a permit from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and the building has to pass an inspection before it opens. That is true, it is checkable, and you should check it.
What you will see advertised
“Watch your pet live, 24/7, from anywhere in the world!”
There is no webcam, and we will not pretend there is
You get a photograph of your animal every day. You do not get a live camera, and that is a decision rather than an omission.
What you will see advertised
“Your dog will have the time of their life! A holiday for them while you are on yours.”
We cannot promise your dog will love it
Some dogs pull towards the door on the second visit. Some dogs spend three days flat and quiet and then decide it is fine. Some never really enjoy it and simply tolerate it well.
Nobody is on the other end of this. This is a demonstration website. Woodside Pet Lodge is not a real business, no animal is boarded here and no booking made on this site is real. The telephone number is a placeholder and the booking system is a working example built to show what one does.
Are those dates free?
The calendar shows every night, for every suite class, with how many are left and what that night costs. Nothing is paid on this website: you pay when you collect.